


Imprint

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal is not, M/M, Will is dead, deep and long discussions, ghost hitch hiker, ghost story au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2650418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>An error in the programming, a pathway not scripted into whatever code formed Will into who - what - he is now. So the system reroutes. Hannibal realizes his nails are leaving indentations in the soft leather steering wheel and forces his hands to loosen, resting one against his thigh instead.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Will,” Hannibal says softly, tracking the lines on the road as they appear and vanish, appear and vanish. “Do you know that you’re dead?”</i>
</p>
<p>On a lone road, in a torrential rain storm, Hannibal Lecter stops to pick up a hitchhiker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imprint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cherishedsaulie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherishedsaulie/gifts).



> Based on [cherishedsaulie's](http://cherishedsaulie.tumblr.com/) amazing prompt that went a little like this: _Hannibal is driving back from his most recent work when he sees a man walking in the rain. He’s in generous mood today. After introducing himself, he offers the man transportation home._
> 
> _The man doesn’t reply at first, probably weighing the risk and reward of such an offer. Over the tip-tapping of the rain on the car roof he hears the man tell him that he lives in Wolf trap. Hannibal unlocks the passenger side to let him in and learns the man’s name is Will Graham._
> 
> _Will is not a lacking conversation partner and he enjoys the back and forth between the two of them during the car ride. They eventually arrive at Will’s middle of nowhere home and Will leaves with some interesting parting words for Hannibal. If it were to any other person it might have been vague and nonsensical. But to Hannibal it reminds him of what is in his trunk and of the hard work he left behind earlier. He watches Will enter his house._
> 
> _Hannibal gets out of the car, the sound knowledge of his scalpel hidden on his person and a question on the tip of his tongue. Should he have Will Graham at his table?_
> 
> _He finds the answer would be an unsatisfactory no. He enters the house to find it abandoned. Furniture covered in fabric, which were covered in a layer of dust. Hannibal goes back to his home in Baltimore and looks up the name Will Graham on his tablet. He finds Will’s obituary, dated several years back._
> 
> A few tiny changes to make the story flow a little better, and here it is! We really hope you like it, bb!

“Damn, sorry about that.”

The dog sits in the back, a soft whine to almost echo his master’s apology and Hannibal just glances in the mirror, keeping his eyes on the dripping, furry creature sitting obediently still.

“Quite alright,” Hannibal decides today, feels the man beside him relax somewhat, though there is a shiver of guilt that passes through him that Hannibal can never ignore. Always the guilt, whether Hannibal responds in frustration or placation, always the guilt. Then the smile, small but genuine, as the man sits back and reaches for his seatbelt.

“He’s a good dog,” Hannibal mouths along with him, eyes on the mirror so he can safely pull back onto the road. “He won’t shake.”

The indicator ticks, four times, five, like a pulse, despite the empty road Hannibal waits, always for six, before he lets the car peel from the ditch, headlights catching the white noise of water before them as the road stretches long and dark ahead.

“Thanks for stopping,” Will tells him, and Hannibal resists a shiver that preempts the little laugh Will sighs into his hands when the man tries to warm them with his breath. “Thought I’d have to swim home at this rate.”

“My pleasure,” responds Hannibal, and it is, always. “Forget to check the weather today?”

A new venture, this time, and the question draws in Will’s brows in thought. Hannibal turns his eyes from the road to watch the younger man rub his hands together briskly.

“I guess so,” Will smiles, a little chagrined.

Hannibal reaches to raise the temperature in the car, though he knows it will do little to warm the man or his dog, and he wonders if his passenger forgot to check the weather so many months before, as well.

Every time they’ve met, it’s during a torrential rain, late at night, when he first saw the man huddled into his coat, lit by headlights and soaked through to the bone, his dog at his side.

Stepping aside as the car came close, Will had thrown his hand in the air and waved, vigorously, jogging up from the shoulder and onto the pavement as the Bentley slid to a stop.

“Hey,” Will smiles, ducking down to the opened window. “Mind taking me up the road a bit? My house isn’t far - even a little ways would be great.”

Consideration, thought - briefly - for the body in the trunk and the time it would take to veer off his path to deliver this unexpected passenger home. It had been a good hunt.

Hannibal smiles.

“Of course,” he says, watching as the young man grins wider in thanks, and opens the back door for a wet, furry thing to run in and jump into the back, before moving to climb into the passenger seat himself. Hannibal blinks, turns, displeased, as the dog makes itself comfortable on his leather seats, and the young man winces.

“Damn, sorry about that.” A guilty look, almost like a wet dog himself, as Hannibal returns his gaze to his passenger. “He’s a good dog, he won’t shake.”

Hannibal’s lips purse, mentally comparing how rude it would be to displace the man from his car without it even moving, versus his blatant assumption that a dog would be welcome for the ride. He decides, in the end, that he can dispose of them both further down the way. Another meal, a different vintage and taste.

“I do hope he will not,” Hannibal says, indicator ticking, three, four, five, and on the sixth he pulls onto the road again, mouth set in a neutral sort of frown. “Do you make a habit of walking alone at night without any supplies?” he asks. “Even hunters know to bring a flashlight. A raincoat.”

Will sighs, smile widening despite the apparent displeasure of the man beside him. “Can’t say I do. Also can’t say I’m a hunter. Fisherman, when I can, but then I suppose you’re already wet.” He brings his hands to his mouth to warm them with his breath, watching the stripes in the road flicker into being beneath the lights and vanish back into the darkness. “Must have forgotten to check the weather,” Will considers, and rubs his hands together between his knees. “Glad you found me, though. More glad that you stopped.”

“It would have been rude not to,” Hannibal points out, waits a moment before leaning to adjust the temperature for the man to warm himself, though he seems to show no indication of feeling it.

The man looks young, but not young enough to be missed by family. A wife, perhaps, though that, too, seems unlikely. A lone man walking on a lone road with a dog, no cellphone in his hand, no bag, nothing at all to indicate he was even going anywhere. Perhaps he was ill, wandered off on his own and never made it home.

A well-developed excuse to use, then, were he to go missing entirely.

“Someone must be waiting worried, at home,” Hannibal offers, checks his watch and raises his eyebrows in a suggestion of genuine worry. “Dark out, and raining, and no houses that I can see at all, you must have walked far before the rain caught you.”

“Not too far,” Will responds. “I don’t think, anyway. It’s hard to tell out here, especially at night. The trees look the same enough during the day, even more when it’s this dark.” He bites his lip and glances back towards the shaggy dog shivering in the seat behind them, and the corners of Will’s eyes crinkle a little.

“Almost home,” he assures the dog, met with a soft whine in response. Settling back into his seat, Will holds his hands in front of the vents that pour out heat now, and still works his fingers together as if he were chilled. “More dogs at home,” he mutters, and though his lips are twisted into a rueful smirk, his expression overall has softened. “They’ll be happy to see me, though. Went for a walk with this one and I think I just got turned around. Started pouring. You know how it goes.”

A glance towards Hannibal’s expression makes it clear that he does not, the thin displeasure not yet eased from his face, and Will bites his lip again, quieting. 

"Thanks, again, for stopping."

Hannibal draws his fingers over the wheel and down again, to where he had held them before. He says nothing for a long while.

“Dogs are always good to come home to. They miss you, they wait. Silent witnesses to the goings on in the house while you are away, and I do wonder the things they see.” Hannibal’s lips tilt in a smile, as the man beside him narrows his eyes, his expression wary, body language tense. "A lonely life, though. Just you and dogs for company out here. _Isolated_ and lonely."

“I suppose,” Will says, jaw tight, before he turns to glance out the window again.

Hannibal wonders, in that moment, what the man is thinking, what could possibly bring that tension to his body. Instinct? Would someone so wayward to be walking alone, at night, cold, in the rain, have instincts honed enough to realize a predator sits next to him? Would he have given more information had Hannibal approached the question differently? Perhaps asked about a wife, about children, about the warm hearth at home being kept stoked by someone who cares enough to wait -

"Glad you found me," the young man grins. "More glad that you stopped."

Hannibal blinks, offers a smile.

"I couldn't leave you in that rain," he says, amicable, today, surprised that his gamble with the weather had worked, that driving miles out of his way was worth the fuel. "Nor the dog. What's his name?"

"Winston,” the other answers, turning to smile at his dog in the back seat, soaking water into the polished leather. "I'm Will."

"It is nice to meet you both," Hannibal says, does not yet offer his own name, “in such unusual circumstances. A pleasant surprise in this weather, so late."

“You’re telling me,” Will laughs, a huff of breath that does not plume in the heat of the car as it might have, once, outside. “Not a bad ride, either. What do you do, mister -”

“Doctor,” corrects Hannibal mildly.

“Well, that answers that, then.”

“Nearly,” Hannibal agrees, and a smile draws up the corners of his eyes more than his lips. “Hannibal.”

“Doctor Hannibal?” asks Will, brows lifting as he brings his hands to his mouth.

“Doctor Lecter,” smiles the man. “But Hannibal is fine.”

Will doesn’t comment on the curiosity of the name, nor show more than a polite smile in response to it. Turning his attention briefly from the road, Hannibal studies the man’s expression, looks for a flicker of recognition that might occur, and sees nothing but Will adjusting the direction of the warm air towards himself.

“What do you do, Will, that brings you out on a night like this?”

“Must have forgotten to check the weather,” Will remarks. “I teach. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

A quiet hum, and Will removes his glasses to scrub the remaining beads of water from them. Hannibal notes this, however minor, as an act of comfort in place of folding his arms around himself, or averting his eyes out the window - to bare himself briefly, at least in this small way.

“I help out sometimes,” answers Will. “Investigations.”

“That seems a more plausible reason to be out in the cold than teaching,” Hannibal agrees, watches as Will smiles, sets his glasses back against his nose and rubs his hands together. Perpetually cold, entirely aware but not a part of. Lingering and almost lonely. From the back seat, Winston whines softly, and Will leans back to stroke his wet fur.

“Honestly, I just walked far out,” Will says, shifting in this seat to face forward again, hands folded but lower, against his stomach, for heat retention, not discomfort. “Went to think, and went farther than expected.”

“You have someone worried about you at home?” Hannibal asks, softer approach, watching as Will takes the question into stride, shrugs, keeps his eyes forward. No wariness, here, no fear, as he repeats,

“More dogs at home. They’ll be happy to see me, though.”

“I can imagine they will be,” Hannibal agrees, sliding his hands over the wheel, leaning back and pressing a finger to his lips. He wonders what Will remembers, he wonders what he thinks, if there is a set pattern to his responses, like an AI with endless priority lists. Trees upon trees of them. “Silent witnesses to a lot that goes on within the house without your presence.”

Will snorts. “Not so silent when they want something, I assure you.”

Different. Hannibal considers that perhaps the softening of his inquiry had led to this choice of direction. Will is endlessly fascinating to him. Despite the gently programmed responses, the endless replays, the grin that greets him when he pulls over, windscreen wipers fighting the rain.

On the sixth tick of the indicator, Hannibal takes the road again. He resists the urge, sudden and perversely amusing, to interrupt Will and speak for him - the dog is won’t shake, Hannibal’s pleasure to pick him up, terrible weather, Will’s curious wandering - simply to see what would happen if he did. Instead, he follows the same paths as the last time there was a night with so much rain, and nearly sighs relief as Will removes his glasses to wipe them clean.

“What do you investigate?” asks Hannibal, a question that has lingered in his mind for several weeks of irritatingly pristine weather. “If you’re at liberty to discuss, that is.”

Will blinks at the question, and sets his glasses back on his nose. The last time, he left them off.

“Problematic cases,” Will finally answers, after considerable thought, the tension in his jaw shortening his words a little. “Homicides, mostly.” A pause, and he huffs something that in another time - to another question - might have been a laugh. “Exclusively.”

“Something that might lead anyone to wandering, to clear their thoughts,” replies Hannibal, reaching for the temperature button before realizing he’s already raised it fully, enough that he can feel sweat prickling across his skin. “Working alongside the dead,” he ventures, “must be taxing.”

Will turns his eyes towards the window, and Hannibal’s fingers tighten on the wheel.

“They’re the easy part,” sighs Will, chewing his lip. “Finding the ones who made them that way is what’s hard.”

They are quiet, just for a time, a few moments as the wipers hum over the glass and the rain hammers against it. A pulse, there, too. Beat-beat-beat against the rush of blood. Hannibal wonders if that is what Will sees when he closes his eyes, wonders if that is the last thing he remembers.

“Do you find them all?”

“Quite a few.” Will doesn’t seem proud of that track record, brows furrowed still, face still set in a frown. “They say it’s an 80% arrest record, sometimes higher if we include those that commit suicide by cop.”

“All thanks to you.”

Will makes another of those snorting sounds and folds further into himself, the agitation clear all over him. Hannibal wonders if he’s stroking a veil close to dividing them, the one that sets Will cold when the car is filled with heat, the one that brings him to the rain every time it starts.

“Have you found your own?” Hannibal ventures, careful, unsure how he would approach this topic with people he knows well, let alone… here. “The man that killed you?”

Will shrugs, shakes his head, and Hannibal settles with his answer, before Will adds, “It’s mostly men. Sometimes women. Rarely children, but it happens.”

Hannibal’s lips part in surprise at the response, but he holds back his words, considers the question and the answer, and his brows draw in, as if overly focused on the road he’s driven now dozens of times, in conditions just like this.

“You’ve been killed more than once?” he asks, finally, watching as the younger man slumps a little more into his seat and tilts his head back against the seat, eyes closed.

“Too many,” Will murmurs. “Started off as a detective. That went south, so I went north. Back to school.” He uncrosses his arm enough to wave a hand in the general direction of the city, far away, before settling again. “Got into forensics, profiling. Got good at it,” he adds, brows lifting as he nearly smiles, before that fades again, too. “Wrote a book. Started teaching. Then they brought me back in.”

An error in the programming, a pathway not scripted into whatever code formed Will into who - what - he is now. So the system reroutes. Hannibal realizes his nails are leaving indentations in the soft leather steering wheel and forces his hands to loosen, resting one against his thigh instead.

“Will,” Hannibal says softly, tracking the lines on the road as they appear and vanish, appear and vanish. “Do you know that you’re dead?”

A laugh, then, almost sweet, and Will looks at Hannibal directly, blue eyes wide and smile matching.

“Work on your bedside manner, doctor,” he says, turning back to look out over the dashboard. “I’m tired. I’ve had a long day.”

Hannibal relaxes his hand, settles it splayed against his thigh before gently rubbing against the fabric of his pants and returning it to the steering wheel. The windscreen wipers bat the rain away only to have it smear the glass again; a steady rhythm and no clarity, despite their conversations.

In the mirror, Hannibal can see Winston has lain down, finally, eyes closed and contented, seats shiny with water as the rest drips invisible to the floor...

“I’ll just grab a rag,” Will says, closing the door behind himself and opening it for the dog to get out on his own. “I won’t be long -”

“That’s unnecessary.” Hannibal regards him through the sheets of rain the wipers manage to clear. He will wait, back up out of the long drive and turn off the lights, and go in on foot.

Winston follows Will up the steps of the wide porch, and Hannibal can’t help but smile just a little as the dog shakes vigorously, sending off a spray of water before following his owner into the house. The door closes, and no lights illuminate the numerous windows, no cacophony of barking that Hannibal would anticipate from returning to the house full of waiting dogs that Will had brought up so enthusiastically on the drive.

He turns down the heat, windows fogging from it, and switches off the car. A dead battery, perhaps, certain that the man would have a set of jumper cables, and as the wet gravel crunches beneath his feet, Hannibal considers his own pathological need to invent a reason for doing anything.

Perhaps he’s simply enjoyed their conversation.

God forbid they become friendly.

The wood beneath his feet, worn bare of paint from the rain, squeaks as he steps across it and tugs open the rusted screen to knock. A count of six, and then again as insurance, before he knocks again.

Stillness, but for the clatter of rain against the roof overhead. Silence, but for the knob that rattles open when Hannibal rests his hand against it.

Within, the house is colder than outside, the wind wreaking havoc through every crack and splintered windowframe. Furniture that no one has taken, safe from pillaging considering how far out the house actually is, wrapped in clear plastic turning white with age and caked in dust. No personal items, no books, no photographs, all claimed - perhaps - by the family, if the man had had any.

Just skeletons of a life once lived, home, now, for a ghost with nowhere else to go.

Hannibal has never put much faith in the supernatural. Ghosts and spirits and entities. They don’t matter, they never haunt him in his dreams or his life, and yet. He brushes his hand against the counter in the tiny derelict kitchen, leaves fingerprints there that he is sure the winds will cover in dust soon enough.

After that he does not linger, though he does politely close the door behind himself, the screen as well.

The drive back is, unusually, longer than the drive there had been. The rain pelting against the roof and windows of the Bentley, evident only by the speed the wipers soar at, nothing can be heard within. There is no water within the car, not where Winston had lain, splayed over the back seat. Not where Will had sat, curled in on himself and unable to warm despite the heaters pouring air against him. Nothing to suggest either were here at all, except that when Hannibal looks over he can see the curly mop of wet hair, the blue eyes beneath the glasses.

Eyes that never recognize him, eyes that always brighten at the kindness of a stranger, always, always a stranger.

Hannibal brings a hand to his lips as he drives, feeling the soft tendrils of exhaustion caress his skin, just behind his eyes. A long day at work, a long day after that, and then no reason at all to drive the long roads heading away from Baltimore, towards remote Wolf Trap, than to see a hand wave at him to stop, to beg a lift in this awful weather.

He almost misses him. But Hannibal is used to watching for the eighteenth mile marker, watching for motion if not shapes themselves. He pulls over, reaches to the front seat to take his bag, the newspaper beneath, commemorating the death of a brave FBI agent a year ago today in the corner of the front page, to set to the back seat, on the floor where Winston cannot reach, genuine rain or no.

He winds down the window, waits as the wipers beat a steady pulse into the night.

A quick smile from the younger man, hair clinging to his face and water spotting his glasses as he ducks to peek into the car. “Hey,” he smiles, sheepish. “Mind taking me up the road a bit? My house isn’t far - even a little ways would be great.”

“Of course,” answers Hannibal, leaning to open the door for him, and stretching through the back to open the rear as well.

“Appreciate it,” Will laughs, with no cloud of grey to disrupt the cold rain, ushering Winston into the car and shutting the door behind him, before he drops into the passenger seat. Winston’s tail thumps heavy against the leather, and Will looks back towards him, wincing.

“Damn, sorry about that,” he mutters.

Hannibal’s lips - tracing the words he’s heard so many times - part to responds, gently, “Quite alright.”

“He’s a good dog - he won’t shake.”

The indicator ticks - once, twice, six times - as if time has rewound again and again in a strange loop tied only to itself. Each time slightly different, each time perhaps another change, only to find themselves repeating actions outside of their control. Will in his wandering through the rain, and Hannibal seemingly just as bound to circle back again.

“Thanks for stopping,” Will grins, but where Hannibal expects a sigh of laughter against his hands, instead Will’s smile falters, just a little. Blue eyes blink - once, twice - and with a tilt of his head, he asks, “Have we met before?”

**Author's Note:**

> We were given some "alternate endings" to either work with or ignore, and they were very helpful in helping us build the rules within which Will functions :D so, for those interested, here we go:
> 
> \- Will is bound to his road, he cannot leave it.  
> \- Will is also bound to his weather, thus the heavy torrential downpours for his appearance.  
> \- Will cannot learn new things, he cannot remember new things _outside of what he has learned or remembered when he was alive_.  
>  \- Will can, however, converse without issue, change topics and keep it interesting. Because _he knew a lot when he was still alive_.  
>  \- At the end... well... how many of you have seen Memento? :) after a while, you learn to fake recognition, it's a survival tactic. Will certainly knew those when he was alive.


End file.
